Monday, May 30, 2011

Technical analysis of the Guerena shooting...

Having watched the video, I could not believe what a goat rope that "entry" was. Any scratch team of airsoft kiddies from randomly selected YouTube videos could have done as well or better. It was like the Geheime Staatspolizei meets the Keystone Kops...

It's one thing to get mowed down in your home by jackbooted thugs, but please don't let me show up at the pearly gates having been killed by clown-shoed ones..

31 comments:

Joe in PNG
said...

Like Mall Ninjas...

Sigh... The sad thing is that some cops like to play at being "operators", but don't want to do all the hard work of getting in shape, training, or learning how to bloody shoot straight. So, instead they get a batch of Deputy Bubbas together, grab some M-4s, dress up in 511 Tactical Tuxedos, and call themselves a SWAT team. Even if every freaking one of them weights in at 400 lbs.

Right. I need to find out how criminals and SWAT teams breach doors, and how both can be prevented from entering without notice.Because if my door is broken in by men with guns, somebody is going to die... and it will probably be me.

The three methods I've seen so far have been: kicking, bars, and portable rams. Short of mounting my frame on leaf-springs, I don't know what I could do.

Great minds think alike. "goat rope" was the exact descriptor I used when CY first posted about this incident. I was commenting a great deal and emailing back and forth with MikeM on the Erik Scott case until I was overwhelmed at work (and off-duty too) with a lot of goings-on.

Having heard some of the particulars on this shooting I was hoping that CY would delve into it, and I plan on some lengthy comments on this paticular tragedy. Especially in rebuttal to the supposed "law enforcement" commenters there.

A semi-serious counter-strike(computer game) team would've made a better entry than these yahoos. They'd probably shoot with greater accuracy and restraint too, and no I'm not counting on them ever having held real weapons before.

I did entry training in the Marines and had exactly the same reaction as Mike - these guys are completely untrained amateurs. Military and police trainers can use this video to show the opposite of what to do in every respect.

There was a gaggle of cops wandering around outside aimlessly that immediately awoke my sleeping inner NCO and put me in a mood to chew ass. The knock was a joke and if I can’t hear “Police” on the tape, they didn’t hear it in the house. As Mike said, they didn’t stack and they didn’t enter – kind of the whole point of dynamic entry.

@ Standard Mischief: Probably to counter the claims that they were lying about running the siren before entering.

@ Bram: Agreed. The knock was a joke. You can, if you crank the volume on the video WAY up, just barely make out someone calling "police" over what seems to be a loudspeaker - but it's so faint as to be almost completely unintelligible in the video. I can't tell if that's because of the location of the camera, the quality of it's microphone, or if something was screwed up with the loudspeaker.

@ Montie: I would love to hear your professional opinion on whether a SWAT raid was even necessary (as opposed to conventionally serving the search warrant), given the latest information that CY linked to.

What I find disturbing is the apparent disconnect between reckless endangerment, manslaughter, and violation of civil rights criminal charges that would face civilians pulling this kind of deadly prank, and the chance that the officers involved instead face a file note of 'less than professional' with regard to the needless killing.

It is perhaps expected that the incompetence began with requesting the warrant and tasking these officers to proceed; the paper pushers often most directly responsible for organizing fiascoes like this seldom face the criminal charges they have earned.

Trying to rope one goat in a milling herd sounds about right for the circumstances leading to the cops showing up at that house, and to their approach to serving the warrant -- instead of serving the people living in their community, like the Guerenna. But looking foolish trying to get a rope on a goat doesn't leave a wife and daughter hiding, listening to their husband and father being gunned down, and waiting an hour to be allowed to find out just what happened.

I find it telling, too, that there was an observer in the vehicle, with the camera since it moves during the break-in. But the observer is apparently there only to observe -- there is no voice or movement contributing to the security of serving a warrant, or obvious reason someone that close wouldn't have something command-related or supportive to do or say.

Specifically, I don't hear any questions or reports that resistance existed, that a target was observed, was armed or not, was down or not, etc.

SWAT stuff is fun. You get to break out all your gear, kick in doors, tromp around inside folks personal space and maybe shoot a dog. You can't be held responsible for anything that goes wrong. If you get bored you can manhandle the civilians and if they talk any smack taze them or plant some evidence. It's fun. And you better go along on some because everybody else is. What's the downside?

I am at the moment preparing to be a trifle busy (05/31, 1310 hrs.) because Tulsa has a hostage/armed robbery/barracaded suspect incident going in which the suspect has fired a number of shots at responding officers and has apparently taken cover in his vehicle in the parking lot of the Walmart Family Market where the mess apparently started (one of the officers in the store just said there were 10 mm shell casings all over the floor, interesting choice of caliber). He is still firing occasional shots when he can see an officer.

Some SOT (SWAT)is on scene with more on the way. THIS is what SWAT was envisioned for. It is WAY overused these days. More later time allowing, gotta go.

Lanius: The military in the US is not allowed to take part in police matters, period. Look up the "Posse Comitatus" act.

It was relaxed enough to allow the military to report suspicious activity to the police in terrorism and drug smuggling cases ... but before that, a Navy Captain was actually cashiered for merely reporting a smuggling ship to the Coast Guard.

This separation made because of 19th Century military commanders in the Western US were getting a bit heavy handed, and were running roughshod over local newly elected law enforcement ... that they were no longer needed to police the South now that reconstruction had been ended.

I'd expect the group that finally sent you to the pearly gates would be a good team. The first one, Sherrif Taylor and Barney, would end up in therapy, brains overloaded by the sarcasm. The second team, the clown shod one, end up at the local forest preserve, transported there a piece at a time by the zed drei, and the third team would take out the whole structure with an RPG.

Tam, maybe not mortars but I know the local county boys have a rack full of M14 rifles. They just missed out on a OV 10 Bronco, not sure if it would have been equipped with rockets or not. Just saying...

The problem with bigger weapons is the same. Regardless if any idiot can fire one, or anyone can learn to use it accurately and for full effect, it is still the next level of use -- deciding what to use, and when or even if to use it -- that makes the difference. Competent leadership will apply training beforehand, make useful selections of personnel and tech, and adapt appropriately as the situation develops.

Trigger pullers can be mediocre or stellar quality -- without the coordination, the higher level planning and guidance functions, you still get a circus, a crap shoot as to whether there are more bodies than legitimate targets.

Unless used by a competent plan and planner, the bigger the boomstick, the bigger the mess to clean up, with very, very little increase in likelihood of accomplishing what you set out to do.

I think the whole point here isn't to pick a more appropriate offensive weapon, but to fix the part that is broke, and will continue to prevent anything useful from ever coming together on that force. And the broke-part wasn't with the assault clown squad.

Every time I read about one of these charlie foxtrot operations I can only think of one word, "GESTAPO". What a shame. I was brought up to love this country, trust police officers, trust judges, etc., etc... Now, I trust no one.

So far as I can find out, the OV-10 Bronco in military service never carried a FLIR pod other than in testing. The Mohawk OV-1C and D models did routinely carry FLIR, but that is completely different airplane.

The OV-10D carried a laser designator in a turret in the nose, as well as a really fun chain gun under the fuselage.

The sponsons were designed to be removed, as they were in the OV-10D. The chain gun pretty much required a fuselage rebuild that eliminated the ability to re-mount the sponsons, easily anyhow. Wing mounts pretty much necessitated a completely new wing to "remove" the hard points.

IIRC the OV-10s the .gov agencies were trying to get are demilled -D models.

PS: Posse comitatus applies to Federal military. The National Guard is owned and operated by the state governor, so I'm not sure p.c. applies to the Guard. The Guard has been called out by the governors many many times in the past for disaster relief, support, even crime containment.

However, since the Guard has been Federalized, that "legally" may change things. Given the number of laws, judicial rulings, et al. that bho and his ilk have ignored or violated, I doubt seriously that the p.c. causes them to loose ANY sleep.